Thread: Nadia Gamal Dance Workshop - anyone seen it?

Ok, I'm a bellydance video addict, but I just got an email from the BellyDanceShoppe that they have the Nadia Gamal dance workshop on sale for $24.95 with this glowing review:

The DVD has both and Oriental Raks Sharki routine and Bedouin"Folkloric" Dance You will love Nadia's teaching technique. Her language is clear, concise and very descriptive. She explains and demonstrates each move. Because she is teaching into a mirror you can see her moves clearly. She repeats each section as she builds the routine. I found her comments on playing of finger cymbals and her appreciation of American dancer's talent with veils encouraging and interesting.
The Raks Sharki routine is a difficult and appropriate for an Egyptian night club. It has lots of level changes and dramatic mood changes and accents. Nadia's dips and level changes are inspiring but will require strong legs. Her undulations lovely hand are arm work are beautifully taught. Although an advanced routine, the her instruction is so well done that even a novice dancer will be able to do many new moves and will grow as she practices along with the DVD.
The Bedouin "Folkloric" Dance is so much fun and has some really cute moves that all will love! It is easy to follow and quick to learn.

Has anyone see it? I love old fashioned Egyptian dance, but this is footage from a 1978 workshop, so I wonder about the production quality. Still for that price compared to other videos of workshops taught by Egyptian dancers, it seems worth a chance. If anyone has seen it, let me know what you think.

very interested too. there is a clip on hollywood music's site. tina

I have it, and i like the video. But im also a big fan of nadia gamal.
i can see from who Amani got her moves... hehehee... she probably was also fan of nadia.

Thanks, Tina. I just checked out the clip. It's short, but the filming looks pretty good. I'm tempted.

Great timing Zamira. I was looking at this on a website yesterday and wondering what it was like too.

I have a video workshop of a class Nadia taught in the late 70's. I forgot off the top of my head who sponsored her. But whatever video of Nadia's-its worth buying! I picked up some cute steps and combinations from her. And yes, Amani is influenced by Nadia Gamal for sure.

Hi, there is a review of this somewhere on the net. i forgot now where. it may be zorba who is on bhuz who wrote the review. I do remember that I got to the review by going to google and typing it the name of the vid in a search which then led me to it.

My friend has this dvd and she said it was a little disapointing but she will still keep it becasue it is Nadia Jamal.

Found it..
http://www.doubleveil.net/
You have to click on articles then go from there

I was a bit disappointed to this even though I did not expect any high quality filming etc. but it is often really difficult to follow what Nadia is doing as she has black outfit and all the film is very dark.

Anyway as an interesting piece of dance history this DVD is a good find for its price and Nadia has some unique movements that alone are worth seeing - I personally do not think that I´ll ever even try to practice with this DVD however ..c::

If you watch this, there are two students in the front in red suits who look like sisters - well actually they are mother and daughter. They are Tania and Rose Moghrabi and Tania lives in Switzerland now. She has been one of my teachers! Rose also sometimes comes over to teach.
So it was very funny to me to see them in the video.

The video itself might have been a treasure at the time - but I guess nowadays we expect more than just a filmed workshop.

MEISSOUN

You're right Meissoun, the video at the time was a treasure.

I remember because my mum had it and she felt it was priceless... you just Didn't get videos like that anywhere then, it was hard enough getting music.

We're more than a little spoilt now

Originally Posted by meissoun

If you watch this, there are two students in the front in red suits who look like sisters - well actually they are mother and daughter. They are Tania and Rose Moghrabi and Tania lives in Switzerland now. She has been one of my teachers! Rose also sometimes comes over to teach.
So it was very funny to me to see them in the video.

The video itself might have been a treasure at the time - but I guess nowadays we expect more than just a filmed workshop.

MEISSOUN

I remember Tania and Rose! Rose was often in Bobby's workshops with us.

Just saw this in the summer newsletter from www.raqs-sharqi.com:

"Must have" DVD recommendations

Nadia Gamal Dance Workshop by Hollywood Music Center - This is the only record of Nadia Gamal teaching on video. The workshop featured was originally six-hours long; the footage has been edited to 90 minutes. Considering the footage was shot over 25 years, ago, I was delighted with the clarity of picture, sound and camera work. The DVD menu is divided into four basic sections; Oriental "Raks Sharki" Dance; Bedouin "Folkloric" dance; Nadia's biography and Bobby Farrah's statement.

The DVD contains all the highlights of the second day's choreography plus a 15-minute overview of the first day's session. The powerful, dynamic raqs sharqi choreography contains various dance styles including oriental , folklore, basic beledi, and drum solo. The second choreography is a Bedouin folkloric dance. The liner notes don't contain any details of the music used by Nadia, but my investigations have revealed that the Oriental choreography is to a piece called "Amina" that was from an album: SONO CAIRO #17-75119. It was composed and written by Fathi Hijjazi. My gratitude and thanks go to Angelika Nemteth for sharing this information. Unfortunately the details of the Bedouin choreograghy are unavailable.

Although orientated towards advanced/professional students, dancers of an intermediate level will also find this DVD useful. This is not just a straight choreography video. It is a technique class by a true master of Lebanese style. Nadia demonstrates (in English) various techniques of creating movement; including both stationary and moving shimmies. Listen carefully to what Nadia has to say, and you will learn some fantastic tips on musical interpretation. The movements are not broken down step by step, but as Nadia is wearing a cat suit type leotard it is easy enough to see how she creates the movements with her legs and feet. Throughout the workshop, Nadia dances and teaches in high heels in front of the studio mirrors so we see her clearly from two angles. The only slight problem is that the floor of the studio is very dark and Nadia's black leotard is a little hard to see against this, but if you watch with just a little care you will be able to see what she's doing, and how she created those famous movements and that passionate, intense style.

There is an absolutely fantastic question and answer with Nadia, which gives even more insight into Nadia's technique and style, and advice on creating movements and controlling your body - Nadia could not only DANCE but was a excellent teacher who was generous and sharing with her information and obviously cared passionately about presenting the dance in the best light possible. Nadia teaches the oriental choreography in sections, building up on each section as she goes along.

At the start of the Bedouin choreography session, Nadia explains and breaks down the basic movements and style used in the dance, which helps the viewer to learn the short choreography very easily.

There is the ONLY recording on Nadia's teaching - it's not only highly recommended for just this reason, but also for the superb production quality, content and information which you'll learn a lot from. Aladdins Cave sell this DVD at a bargain price of £18 GBP plus postage, which is excellent value for money - the DVD contains a full 90 minutes of first class teaching from one of the biggest legends in oriental dance - compare this against the price of other Middle Eastern "big name" performers and teachers DVD's and videos that have terrible production quality at a hugely inflated price!

you can see it on www.orientaldance.tv

Originally Posted by orientaldance_tv

you can see it on www.orientaldance.tv

No, I can't. Nothing on the site will load for me, I'm just stuck in an eternal 'loading' zone. ..cr.:

The site works best if you have hi speed internet...although it should also work if you do not...just would take longer to load.

I have DSL, so that's not it. Probably just a Mac compatibility thing, not unusual.

I bought the DVD at Rakkasah. I really enjoyed it because I believe that dance is the great story of life and as stories get passed down, sometimes they change until they are almost unrecognizable. It is my thought that by learning the best I can from great teachers of the past and those of today, I am able to keep not only the great stories of the past alive but I am able to appreciate how the stories have changed over the years.
Yes, the quality in filming is a little different than what we are used to today but it is not bad...just different. I love how Nadia is so strict and straight forward. She had a lot of passion for this dance form and took it very seriously. I only wish I had the chance to have taken lessons from her one on one.

Yea, its me with the review. Direct link:

http://www.doubleveil.net/reviews/nadia2.htm

Anything from Nadia is a treasure! It was my #1 thing to
buy at Rakkasah this year.

Hey, what a great site bellydance tv is! Howcome nobody ever thought of this before?
Lauren I don't think it's a Mac incompatibility thing though. All the computers in my house are Macs and I haven't had any problem loading anything on this particular site. Did you try a different browser? Safari is usually less problematic than Mozilla or Camino.

Regards
Priscilla

Originally Posted by Lauren_

I have DSL, so that's not it. Probably just a Mac compatibility thing, not unusual.

,r:; Actually, it loads perfect at my house (dsl) thru mozilla browser...traffic since the launch Friday has been amazing. Incredible what can be done with video now on the net,r:;

Originally Posted by orientaldance_tv

,r:; Actually, it loads perfect at my house (dsl) thru mozilla browser...traffic since the launch Friday has been amazing. Incredible what can be done with video now on the net,r:;

It works for me. What a fabulous idea!! helps to decide what we do and dont want. I now realise that i want Aisha dances of Egypt! looks facinating!!

Originally Posted by orientaldance_tv

you can see it on www.orientaldance.tv

Very slow but at least I can access it. Looks to be a wonderful resource.

Originally Posted by orientaldance_tv

you can see it on www.orientaldance.tv

I have massively high speed internet here...I get stuck in internal loading as well (when it isn't actually loading anything) on my Mac/Firefox. I know another browser might help...but macs and firefox are such common machines/browsers that I tend to just ignore sites that don't load.

Yea, it is an interesting beast...we did tons of research to try and make sure we choose the right way to deliver very high quality TV like video...our video is delivered by the second largest company for delivering high quality video on the internet...the way it works is that the video resides initially on one server...with our company, once somebody "asks" for it, it moves to another one of their servers closer to the person requesting it, meaning it will load faster for them or others near them in the future. This company also has servers in other countries around the world, but not as many, thus it will take longer...however I am interested to know if it gets faster when you ask for the same video a second time---in theory it should. All in all, this is about as good as it can be for the quality we are able to deliver. But, if it is slowish the first time, do load each clip again...

Hmmm. It loads extremely quickly for me every time, I'm actually surprised. I haven't had any trouble on my MAC at all. I use Safari when I want to watch videos of any kind though, because Mozilla always seems to get stuck. I'm in Costa Rica, don't know if that has anything to do with the speed at which it loads.

Regards
Priscilla

I have cable internet access. It plays right away, but it's very choppy. I tried playing again and pausing the play until the entire video could load, but there was no improvement. Maybe it's my old computer.

I bought it.. it is a waste of time and money in my opinion. like someone found some old footage and put it on dvd just to sell something with her name on it. my take: don't bother.

Hi Mila, you'll be happy to know I didn't buy it. It sounded interesting, but I have a lot of good DVDs now, and I haven't had time to really learn all the material on them. Also, I know I'm more picky than average when it comes to video production.

Yes! The video is very nice! Does anyone know were I can find the music "Amina"?

Yes! The video is very nice! Does anyone know were I can find the music "Amina"?